The Midterms’ False Story Factory

The rumor mill tightens before Nov. 3

The countdown is visible on every feed. On Nov. 3 the U.S. will conduct its 2026 midterm elections, and the air around them has grown loud with claims of election fraud, lost ballots and poll worker mismanagement. Some of the stories are old, recycled from past seasons; others are tied to real or rumored actions of President Donald Trump’s second administration. They move fast, often stripped of context, and they land in comment sections just as voters begin to check in.

The collection of claims has been catalogued in the weeks before the vote. Voters have raised concerns about their ballots being lost in fires. The reality, as it has been reported, is that ballot drop box fires remain a threat to paper ballots, though officials are working hard to mitigate the risk. The worry persists because the image of a box in flames is easy to share, and harder to explain.

Other stories orbit the mechanics of voting itself. Questions circulate about whether a ballot is disqualified if poll workers mark it. Several states require poll workers to mark ballots as part of the verification process. The claim that such marking invalidates a vote is a recurring falsehood that has resurfaced on social media in the final stretch.

Ballots, drop boxes and the stories that won’t die

The Snopes collection ahead of the midterms lists eight rumors about ballot boxes and polling stations. Among them is the pushback from Georgia district attorneys against a state law removing candidates’ party affiliations from ballots, an issue flagged on Oct. 13. On the same day, the Trump administration’s decision to skip international election observers for the 2026 midterms drew attention; it marks the first time since 2002 that the OSCE had not received an invitation.

Images of National Guard members near a D.C. ballot drop box have also been shared and debated. Posts get parts right and parts wrong about what federal law permits. The narrative of vote count spikes fuels another round of unfounded fraud claims; surges are described as normal parts of elections, with specific, explainable causes.

Mail voting rumors continue to circulate. One claim that the U.S. postmaster general said he’d block mail-in ballots distorts facts, according to reporting from mid-September. Another, from early September, insists that adding a stamp to a ballot will make it first-class mail. The claim spread as the Trump administration sought to implement new federal regulations on mail.

The Associated Press Fact Check pages echo the same terrain. Social media posts falsely claim ballots marked by a poll worker will be disqualified. Posts falsely claim Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was at a mental facility. A Census Bureau report does not prove Trump’s claim about noncitizen voting in 2020. The items sit alongside broader economic fact checks: what matters before Nov. 3, and a note that the poverty rate is at an all-time low, but with other factors to consider.

A satire that became a headline

In mid-October a different kind of false story took hold. An article in an Australian satirical publication shared otherwise unreported quotes from President Donald Trump. The claim: Trump accused Ukraine of midterm election interference after it struck “bot farms” in Russia in October 2026.

The story originated on The Betoota Advocate website on Oct. 14, titled “Trump Accuses Ukraine Of Midterm Election Interference After Russian Bot Farm Strikes.” The piece said Trump accused Ukraine of election interference by bombing bot farms in Russia earlier that week, leading to a sharp decrease in social media activity worldwide, while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One.

The rumor spread on Facebook and X. Some users appeared to view The Betoota Advocate as a credible news source. The Advocate describes itself as “Australia’s oldest newspaper.” Betoota is a ghost town in Queensland with no permanent population. Australian media outlets classify the site as satire.

Fact checkers found no record of Trump speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Oct. 14. Trump did address reporters in Bullhead City, Arizona, on Oct. 14, but did not speak about Russia, Ukraine or strikes on Yandex’s servers. Searches returned no results for the reported quotes. Ukraine had struck Yandex servers in Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir from Oct. 7 to 11, and work to restore services continued on Oct. 15. The rumor that Trump viewed those strikes as election interference because they took Russian bots offline that worked in Republicans’ favor came from the satirical site, and no credible reporting corroborated it.

On the trail: Obama, Trump and the midterms fight

The campaign itself has become a stage for competing narratives. Former President Barack Obama hit the trail for Democrats ahead of the midterms, attacking the Trump administration over the Iran war and high consumer prices. In Ohio on Saturday he told crowds, “This election is our last best chance to at least rein in some of the foolishness of this administration.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump toured Georgia, touting his administration’s immigration and tariff policies and telling supporters “we’re in the golden age of America.” The midterm elections on Nov. 3 will decide which party controls Congress for the rest of Trump’s term, and therefore how easy it is for the president to carry out his plans. Early voting has already begun and Trump cast his ballot on Saturday in Florida alongside his wife First Lady Melania Trump.

Obama targeted Trump and his cabinet members while speaking in Ohio and Michigan. He said he sympathised with voters who rejected Democrats in 2024 over economic and inflation concerns following the Covid pandemic, but said Trump had only himself to blame for the current state of the economy. “If you thought everything was too expensive before ‘you know who’, everything is more expensive now,” he said, referring to Trump without using his name.

Trump acknowledged that oil prices were “temporarily high” but said “our country is getting stronger and stronger all the time, and those pump prices are going to come down.” At a rally in Perry he said “we’re taking in massive amounts of money through tariffs” and repeated his pledge to offer every adult American a $5,000 payout if Republicans win both chambers of Congress. He also took aim at Democrats, using derogatory language about immigration from Libya, Yemen, Haiti and Somalia.

Obama’s rally in Ohio was to show support for ex-Senator Sherrod Brown, who is running to unseat incumbent Republican Senator John Husted, and Amy Acton, who is running for state governor against Republican Vivek Ramaswamy. Obama criticised Ramaswamy for a campaign ad released the previous week in which Acton’s estranged mother was featured calling her a liar. The ad didn’t mention that the woman’s husband was charged with raping Acton when she was a child.

In Michigan, Obama condemned critics of Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, suggesting they’re using his name or his faith to tear him down. “We have seen this movie before. I starred in it,” Obama said in Detroit. “I’ve got a long-form birth certificate to prove it.” He added, “Abdul is as Michigan as it gets.”

Trade, tariffs and a last-minute reprieve

The economic story has been a constant through-line. FactCheck.org’s October 2026 update notes job growth became sluggish, with only 776,000 jobs created under Trump’s second term. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.2%, still historically low. Inflation worsened; consumer prices are up 5.4%. Gasoline is up 38%. Wages just barely rose faster than inflation, as measured since Trump was sworn in, but they’ve decreased this year. The economy grew 2.2% in the second quarter, continuing a steady rate of growth. Consumer sentiment remains low. Home prices increased 6.2%.

The number of apprehensions at the U.S. border with Mexico decreased about 91%. Refugee admissions dropped by nearly the same percentage. The percentage of the population lacking health insurance was statistically unchanged in 2025. The number of people receiving federal food assistance decreased by 6 million. Median household income rose in 2025, while the official poverty rate declined. Corporate profits continued to rise; 2025 was the 10th consecutive year profits increased. The S&P 500 went up 28.6%. Violent crime and murder rates in 2025 continued to decline. The publicly held debt is up about 12.8%.

Ahead of the Nov. 3 elections, Trump has implored supporters in rallies across the country to “pretend I’m on the ballot.”

In the final fortnight, the White House lifted some tariffs on Canadian goods two weeks before the midterm elections, after a Republican candidate in a key U.S. Senate race said she had lobbied for the change. From Oct. 30, tariffs were eased on products including plywood sheets, some paper products, certain machinery and refrigeration equipment. The U.S. had imposed a 50% levy on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods after trade talks collapsed in August. Canada had imposed countermeasures in response.

Republican Senator Susan Collins, who is in a tight race to keep her seat in Maine, first announced the exemptions, saying they would help her state’s agriculture industry. Collins said she had repeatedly asked senior Trump officials for tariff relief and would continue working directly with administration officials to seek additional relief and encourage a broader trade agreement with Canada.

Prairie populism and a car crash in Alaska

While national themes dominate the feeds, the ground game is local. In the Midwest and prairie states, Democratic and independent candidates are trying to win back rural voters long ceded to Republicans. Dan Osborn rolled into one of the most rural counties in Nebraska earlier this month, walking into businesses in the tiny main drag of Arthur, ready to meet whomever he could in a town of about 100. Osborn is touring all 93 counties in the state before election day; he has about a dozen left.

In Iowa, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek calls himself a “commonsense prairie populist.” The pitch ties together farmers and workers who feel abandoned by both parties, and it now includes datacenters and artificial intelligence as part of the populist platform, drawing on anti-corporate sentiment and a desire in rural areas to maintain land and lifestyle away from big tech interference.

The season has also been marked by personal setbacks. Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola, a Democrat running for Alaska’s lone U.S. Senate seat, and her family suffered minor injuries in a car crash while driving to a campaign stop on Saturday. Peltola required medical attention after the collision. Her campaign said she and her family sustained minor injuries but are in good spirits, and upcoming events in Fairbanks and Bethel were rescheduled as she takes time to recover.

Peltola is challenging Republican incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan, hoping to become the first Democrat in nearly two decades to represent the state in the Senate. Both candidates have tried to rally support from Alaska Native voters, a key constituency in the high-stakes race. On Friday, Trump ordered the Justice Department to block the certification of the Senate election in Alaska if Sullivan loses, citing potential confusion with another Republican candidate listed on the ranked-choice ballot as Daniel J Sullivan Jr.

The midterms are converging now: a flood of viral claims, a campaign that mixes national grievance with local door-knocking, and voters trying to separate what is true from what is amplified. With a week to go, the stories that matter most are the ones people will act on at the polls.